Mom & Dad’s Anniversary – 2016

This coming Thursday, February 4th would have been my parent’s 67th wedding anniversary. And while I still recall the actual dates and events that led up to their untimely deaths, it is the more joyous occasions, their wedding and birthdays, that I choose to celebrate.

Last fall, I was going through some old photos and ran across pictures of my parents before they were engaged and at their wedding. So this year in celebration of their anniversary, I want to present a pictorial story of their early years together.

My parents met in the small Texas town where my mom was born and grew up. My dad, being a minister-in-training, was invited to come preach at the church that my mom attended (Dad was actually fourth on the list to preach that Sunday, the previous three being unavailable). After the service, my mom was invited to lunch to meet the soon-to-be-ordained minister. Upon returning to seminary that night, my dad stated to his roommate that he had met the woman he wanted to marry.

In the album I found, this photo labeled “The Courting Couple.” Whether it was on this occasion when the photo was taken or another in the same spot, it is here that my parents must have begun to talk about starting a life together.

And in this photo labeled “Should She? Or Shouldn’t She,” is where my mom must have been contemplating what that possible future would mean, for it was on this petrified wood bench that my Dad proposed to my mom.

That fall, my mom visited my dad where he was attending seminary.

And then sometime in 1949, my parents became engaged, this being one of my dad’s favorite pictures of my mom.

The wedding was at my mom’s church, where she had seen my dad for the first time…

…and then the reception was at my mom’s home.

Soon, they were off to start their life together, a marriage that would bear my three siblings and me, a marriage that would last 50 years!